Report: SMS support coming in the next version of Google Hangouts

It looks like Google is gearing up to combine IM and SMS into a single app.

Android Police has scored a set of screenshots from the next version of Google Hangouts, and it looks like Google is finally ready to integrate SMS messaging into the product. One screenshot shows messages displaying in the Hangouts app, marked as "xx mins via SMS." Another shows the settings screen with an option to "Turn on SMS," which will "send and receive SMS with Hangouts." The report says the screenshots are from version 1.3 of Hangouts (the current version is 1.2) and that SMS delivery reports, MMS, and video sharing support are also included.

Android Police has a solid track record of getting access to early bits of Android, having acquired advanced copies of Android 4.2 and Android 4.0 in the past. (Full disclosure: I wrote those articles). While the site can't give a firm release date, chances are good that this is part of the coming wave of Android KitKat improvements.

Unifying the stock texting app and Google Hangouts is probably the Android community's most requested feature. It would bring Google's confusing mess of messaging apps down from three apps to two. There used to be four messaging apps (Google Talk, G+ Messenger, the stock texting app, and Google Voice), so this is an ongoing project for Google. If this change makes it into version 1.3, we'll be down to Google Voice and Google Hangouts.

That's right, there's still no Google Voice support. Hopefully that's next on the agenda.

55 Reader Comments

If you (and Google) are going to mix protocols, you may as well count Gmail as a "messaging" app too. I don't really mind that one being separate, but a unified search would be nice. Isn't that Google's specialty anyway?

Often I have to find a piece of information my girlfriend sent me (an address, grocery list addendum, etc) but I forget whether she sent it via SMS, IM, email, or voicemail -- so I end up scrolling through up to four apps.

What will be interesting is how they resolve device conflicts. For example, my brother has an iPhone but is usually logged on to Google Chat / Hangouts during the day. So if I send him a message, does he get a text (aka SMS) or does he get a pop-up in his Hangouts messaging window?

By the way, there is an app that allows SMS to be sent & received via a Google Voice number (yes, bypassing your cell carrier). But it doesn't work on all Android versions or ROMs, and when I tried it I actually had to downgrade my GV app to on old version for compatability. Official support for SMS in GV (or Hangouts) would be better.

I'm pretty sure this is the Voice integration just without explicit "Google Voice" labels. That would make sense since they previously stated that Hangouts is the future of Voice. It would be dumb to have two sets of competing branding when you know from the get go that one of them is in the process of being killed off. So why state "Google Voice Integration" when not long after release "Google Voice" would be either depreciated or shut down?

Hangouts is such a bloated, slow and inconvenient app, that I am not looking forward to this...

I'm running an old Droid 2 (Android 2.3.4) and Hangouts is kinda slow to load, but it works fine thereafter. I'd glady put up with that if it meant I could ditch SMS from my carrier plan. Text messages are horribly overpriced when you consider the tiny amount of data they require.

I'm pretty sure this is the Voice integration just without explicit "Google Voice" labels. That would make sense since they previously stated that Hangouts is the future of Voice. It would be dumb to have two sets of competing branding when you know from the get go that one of them is in the process of being killed off. So why state "Google Voice Integration" when not long after release "Google Voice" would be either depreciated or shut down?

On that same note, I really hope they allow you to use your Google Voice number for Hangout SMS.

At the moment this means literally nothing as at best it is a leak of what might possibly someday exist. Nothing changes until it's officially announced or released. If you were uploading before you'll keep uploading. Odds are you weren't though, and if that's the case you still won't be uploading.

Hangouts is cross platform via an app on smart phones or through a web browser on a PC or Mac.

Hangouts definitely has an advantage over SMS like being able to send full resolution photos, video and other attachments. I look forward to this update. I try to get my friends all to use Hangouts, but they don't like having 2 messaging apps. This will go a long way to ditching the built-in SMS app.

It might not seem so, but the ability to seamlessly integrate with SMS is no trivial task. It's no wonder it took this long to get this feature.

I find that somewhat difficult to believe, it uses Google's cloud push tech to send and receive messages. It's no bigger of a drain than GMail, or Calendar, which use the same tech by combining all those services into one server connection. Disabling it will give you no benefits unless you also disable all of your other Google Cloud Push server apps.

What will be interesting is how they resolve device conflicts. For example, my brother has an iPhone but is usually logged on to Google Chat / Hangouts during the day. So if I send him a message, does he get a text (aka SMS) or does he get a pop-up in his Hangouts messaging window?

If they handle it like Windows Phone (which has had combined messaging since launch in 2010) there will be a ‘switch’ button which lets you select the mode from all available messaging options for that contact. Also, when you receive a message and the mode has changed since the last message there is a note to that effect.. i.e. if you have been communicating via SMS and your contact switches to Facebook messaging midstream.

Hangouts is such a bloated, slow and inconvenient app, that I am not looking forward to this...

Hangouts is exactly as you described on my old iPhone 4 and iPad 3. On the other hand, Hangouts is behaves like it is fast, lean and convenient on my 5s. Definitely a sign of major bloat when only the highest end, latest and fastest hardware runs the app with any kind of grace.

What will be interesting is how they resolve device conflicts. For example, my brother has an iPhone but is usually logged on to Google Chat / Hangouts during the day. So if I send him a message, does he get a text (aka SMS) or does he get a pop-up in his Hangouts messaging window?

What will be interesting is how they resolve device conflicts. For example, my brother has an iPhone but is usually logged on to Google Chat / Hangouts during the day. So if I send him a message, does he get a text (aka SMS) or does he get a pop-up in his Hangouts messaging window?

Ala iMessage, why not both?

That's one way of doing it - another is like TeknoKid posted. I just think they need to think it through - because I've found the "what device gets notifications" doesn't resolve that well. For instance, I have a Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 10 - if I get a Hangout message, and I'm 'logged on' to both devices, only one gets the message, and it seems to be random which one. So the behaviour needs to be predictable, reliable. If I text a mate, and he's logged on to Google on some PC, it needs to not decide that his phone doesn't need a copy of that message.

For instance, I have a Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 10 - if I get a Hangout message, and I'm 'logged on' to both devices, only one gets the message, and it seems to be random which one. So the behaviour needs to be predictable, reliable. If I text a mate, and he's logged on to Google on some PC, it needs to not decide that his phone doesn't need a copy of that message.

Yep, that's my problem with it, it's not predictable. This is probably (for me) the biggest reason I want Google to rationalise their chat services. As it is, I stick to SMS because it (generally) works and its failure modes are well understood.

Shouldn't we be fleeing from the SMS MMS standards en-masse? A medium billed by the phone company vs. a service that is free and carrier-agnostic?

Fleeing from a fairly standardized protocol (SMS/MMS) to proprietary media like Hangouts and iMessage that the use the data plans billed by phone companies? Probably not, especially since many plans have unlimited texting and limited data.

Ron Amadeo / Ron is the Reviews Editor at Ars Technica, where he specializes in Android OS and Google products. He is always on the hunt for a new gadget and loves to rip things apart to see how they work.